


Up, Over

by MomentumDeferred



Series: Of A Fractured Sky [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Biological Warfare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Gen, Neurological Disorders, Sunshineverse, Survival, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 06:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5038048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(pla·teau ||  plaˈtō/<br/>1. a state of little or no change following a period of activity or progress.)</p><p>If Foggy could attribute one event as being the worst thing that had ever happened because of the goddamned apocalypse, it wouldn't be the sky opening up like a war-wound.  It wouldn't be the city burning itself to a crisp in a pyre made of itself, or the aliens skulking silver in the ashes, or even the loss of his firm and his home and his life.</p><p>It would absolutely, <i>definitely</i> be the virus taking hold in his best friend.</p><p>(Written for a prompt.  You may want to go through the original story, Sunshine, before you read this one.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Up, Over

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt received on my blog (sunshineverse): while Matt was still Matt, conversations with Foggy about his disease. Matt and Foggy after Matt comes off his first plateau-they both thought he was dead, but he's not dead, wtf life? Do they talk about his symptoms, or is it too hard?
> 
> It ended up being quite long, so I decided to just post it here. I hope that's alright.
> 
> This is canon.

They were so far from the apartment when it struck for the first time. Hours away. It really wasn't the smartest move they'd ever done. They were digging around for water and food, like they always did. Matt wasn't acting strange, wasn't giving any hint at all that he was unwell. His elbow was still bandaged from the bite two weeks ago, both of them too afraid to leave it uncovered-- Foggy because he didn't want to invite bacteria into the wound, and Matt because he didn't want Foggy to touch it on accident and get infected.

It went like this:

Foggy, crouched down in an alley, pushing a discarded broom handle through a pile of trash that took up most of one wall. He'd looked through worse things for less, of course; they both had. Matt had scrambled up onto a neighboring apartment building to find a way in, to hunt through the rooms, dig through the dead and desiccated bodies and find something to stop them from ending up the same way. That left Foggy alone in the alley, and that's where the feral found him, coming in out of nowhere with a sharp yowl like a wounded dog. A female. Maybe around his age, even.

Foggy screamed on instinct. "Matt! _Matty!_ I need your _fucking help, man!"_

He scrambled to his feet, grabbing his rifle from his shoulder, fumbling for the safety catch. He backpedaled, stumbling on refuse and remains, hearing the feral snarling, _howling_ , in hunger and rage and sickness. His finger rubbed hard over the trigger as he lifted the gun, and it bucked back into his shoulder as he fired, the sound of the discharge a solid crack that echoed through the alley and up into the shell of the building around him.

Of course, he missed, because he wasn't used to this, he wasn't used to having to backpedal and fire this stupid heavy-ass rifle at the same time while a feral was bearing down on him, all noise in inconsistent movements, jaws snapping, teeth clicking together in an imitation of his rifle shot. She lurched past the trash he was digging up as he pulled the rifle's bolt back and in, chambering the next round, limbs quaking as fear pushed his heart up into his throat and panic threw his stomach down to the bottom of the earth.

"Matt, _please!"_

He fired again, caught her just barely on the top of her left shoulder, and she didn't even react. She kept coming, her long hair all around her face, the faint smear of old makeup still visible beneath her eyes.

There was another roar-- _behind_ him-- and Foggy thought he probably screamed. It would have been Matt's name again, he knew, begging for his friend to hear him and come back. He heard light and rapid footsteps, and he whirled his head around, and of course it was Matt himself, and--

And Foggy had never seen him look so goddamned furious, and in that single, sharp moment, he _knew_. He knew immediately. Matt had turned. The virus had taken over. Matt was dead and Foggy was staring at his corpse. His stomach rolled; he tried not to scream again although the sound was bubbling up in his chest, trying to break from his lungs. He gripped the rifle, brought it up to defend himself.

Matt _roared_ , a noise that Foggy had never heard before, never _wanted_ to hear, not from his friend's throat, raw and wild like someone had lit flame to his vocal cords. He passed Foggy completely and hurtled down the alleyway, not even pausing before he flashed one lightning-strike of a blow to the feral's throat. She stumbled, but didn't fall, rattling for breath, her voice nothing but garbled sounds and aborted speech.

That was enough for them to get away, Foggy knew, and maybe in another life they would have picked up and fled, but this was the only life they had, and it was made of dust and blood and the horrible deafening sounds of Matt burning alive in the virus. The feral whirled on him and lunged, her yellowed teeth bared. A howl emptied itself from her chest as she swung at him, a wild, graceless swipe.

Matt grabbed her arm by the wrist and snapped it at the elbow like it was a pencil. She shrieked, loud and awful, and tried to get at him with her other arm. Her fist slammed hard against his ribs but he grabbed that, too, and used it as a fulcrum to dislocate her shoulder with a muffled pop.

But she was a feral, _just like him_ , so she was still going after him, teeth snapping. He leaned away, all eerie grace in a too-thin form. His face was pale and twisted in a rage that Foggy could barely believe Matt was capable of.

Oh, but he was capable. He was definitely capable.

He backpedaled again, smooth as silk, then grabbed her broken arm and twisted it behind her, forcing her to a kneeling position on the ground. Matt leaned down, scrabbling the fingers of one hand around her jaw, the other twisted up tight in her hair. A low, rolling growl came from his chest, and he snapped her neck with one powerful, horrible movement.

He tossed her to the ground and straightened, heaving for breath. His left arm was shuddering; his whole body was tense like a piano wire.

Foggy stared at the body of his best friend standing at the end of the alley, and could not stop himself from calling out his name.

\---

"Grab my elbow, yeah?"

Matt's fingers were tight and painful and made of iron. Foggy eased him carefully out of the alley, into the street. A chill breeze breathed against their backs as they moved. Foggy didn't budge his gaze from his friend, watching the way his jaw was clenched up tight, how his skin was pale and his eyes stayed fixed in one direction as he stumbled and tried to move faster.

They were so goddamned far away from the apartment. This was going to take ages, especially with Foggy-- the clumsiest man who'd ever lived-- half-carrying him through the piles of debris that made up most of the city. Matt struggled to walk straight, breathing in sharp huffing breaths. He kept his jaw tight and didn't speak.

Foggy wanted to ask, _'How come you didn't turn on me?'_

He wanted to ask, _'Why are we still alive?'_

He wanted to ask, _'What in the actual motherfucking fuck just fucking happened back in that fucking alleyway?'_

Foggy actually asked, "How you holdin' up, Matty?"

Matt jolted slightly, as if he'd forgotten he was leaning on Foggy in order to walk. He opened his mouth, shut it, opened it again. "I..." his eyes moved, back-and-forth, a single sweeping motion, "...don't."

"Don't what?"

It took a long moment for Matt to let out a sharp sigh, and just shake his head. His expression was pained, heavy with a plea directed to something that neither of them could see.

"It's okay, Matt. It's okay. I'm getting us home."

After that, they walked in silence. For a long time. The Kitchen came closer and closer, but still not close enough that Foggy felt any better.

Around noon-- about an hour later-- Matt started listing weakly to his left side, breathing a little harder. He tripped on nothing, and Foggy had to reach out and snatch his other arm to stop him from collapsing straight to the cracked sidewalk. Matt stumbled to his knees instead, letting out a soft, surprised grunt.

"Jesus. You okay?"

Of course, Matt didn't answer, just shook his head and grappled at Foggy's elbow, trying to pick himself back up. And Foggy tried to help, pulling at his arms, and Matt got to his feet for half a step before his legs went out from under him again, just like in the alleyway. Matt stopped trying to force himself upright after that, and simply dropped back down to the road in a graceless heap. His chest was heaving for air. His face was so pale, his expression so fucking lost and confused. He looked like he was about to fucking die.

Foggy tried to stay calm. Tried to stop his heart from beating so quickly. He knew he'd failed when he knelt down to put a hand on Matt's shoulder, pulling him into a sitting position, and Matt reached out with his right hand and put it on Foggy's chest.

He paused. "...I know, Matty. I'm worried about you."

"Don't," he said, and it was a struggle just for the word. He licked his lips and shook his head again, curling his right hand into a fist against Foggy's shirt. His mouth opened, but no speech came out, and that disoriented look on his face twisted into something a lot worse. Tears were gathering in his eyes.

"Hey, Matty, hey, it's all right," Foggy breathed. "It's okay. I'll get you back. I'm going to take you back home."

Matt's hand moved up, fingers skating along Foggy's neck, down his arm. He tilted his face around, trying to center his line of sight on his friend, missing completely, but it didn't matter because Foggy knew what he was trying to do. "Please," Matt whispered, voice cracking, fingers tightening without strength. "Please. Home. Please."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm taking you home. Right now." Foggy looked around, sighed, then took Matt's arm and hooked it over his neck, lifting him up from the street. Christ, he didn't weigh anything at all. "Just lean on me. It'll be fine."

Matt tried, and they got an admirable two blocks before he faltered again, and his legs stopped trying to move entirely. His skin was so pale that it looked like fucking snow. He was breathing faster, all sharp and erratic gasps against Foggy's neck, leaning hard against him-- really, the only thing stopping Matt from falling straight to the ground again was Foggy's tight grip on the bony wrist that was flung over his shoulders.

"Okay, buddy. Okay. Enough walking, huh?"

All he got in response was a vague, airy mumble. Foggy chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to swallow his worry and his panic. It tasted like mold and acid on the back of his tongue. He set his friend down gently against a parked car, then turned himself around, pulled Matt's arms over his own shoulders.

"Help me out, buddy. Climb."

Thank God-- Matt had the capacity to tighten his arms around Foggy's neck so that Foggy could hook a hand into each knee and pick him up, carrying him piggyback with the rifle slung around his own neck, hanging down against his chest. It probably looked awkward as fucking hell, but screw it. He had to get Matt home like two hours ago.

Matt buried his face weakly into Foggy's neck, smearing warmth against his skin. Foggy blinked up at the afternoon sun, and started walking.

\---

It felt like a week before he turned the corner and saw their apartment, tall and solid and welcoming on the corner of the street. His back was screaming and his chest was shouting and Matt was only making weak gasping sounds into Foggy's ear now, unconscious. Foggy wasn't sure when it had happened. He'd been too focused on moving as quickly as he could, not even attempting to keep up a conversation-- not that Matt was much for words right now.

He climbed the staircase slowly, hissing with pain and not even looking as he passed the other boarded-off apartment doors. They didn't go into them. Not anymore.

Finally, _finally_ , Foggy got them to 6A. He kicked the door open because they never locked it. Anyone that wanted in was guaranteed not to know what a key was for.

His back was on fire as he finally got Matt to the bedroom, turning and setting him down carefully on the stained mattress. When he straightened up, there was such a strange and disorienting feeling pooling in his spine from the lack of weight that it felt like he'd lost a limb. Foggy rubbed idly at his lower back, then tugged the rifle off of his neck and leaned down to get the backpack off of Matt's shoulders. His friend didn't fight, didn't shift, didn't move at all. Totally limp, totally powerless.

Foggy wanted to throw up. He snapped his fingers in Matt's face, trying to get his attention, and got nothing. Not even a twitch. And Matt wasn't a heavy sleeper. Anything and everything would put him from REM sleep to full alertness in half a second. Foggy chewed at his lip. Not a good sign.

Matt's hand was still shaking; Foggy bent carefully and picked it up, rolling the ball of his thumb into his friend's palm, feeling the muscles spasming inconsistently.

It hit him then, hard and sudden:

He was sitting in his apartment and holding the hand of a feral. There was a feral in the apartment. There was a feral _in their bed_ , and the feral--

The feral was _Matt._

Foggy continued sitting, holding his friend's hand and staring hard at the boarded windows in the living room. After a minute, he started crying, and he didn't stop until the sun was down and he was sleeping fitfully, curled up on his side with Matt's hand between them-- a shivering, defunct beacon of everything they'd lost and everything they'd ever hoped to keep.

\---

Soft sobbing woke him up from a dark dream of a black river, and Foggy sat up automatically with a grumble. His back hurt like fucking _hell_ , and his head was pounding, and--

_Matt's feral. Matt's feral. Matt's feral._

The thought poured back into his head unhindered in an endless loop. Foggy took a breath, looking around wildly. There was a bit of moonlight coming in through the boarded windows, casting a weak dull silvery highlight on the inside of the apartment.

"Matty?" he called, his voice a soft breath only.

A noise answered him-- not words, only a weak and wounded sound that seemed like it had been dragged from the quietest of animals. Foggy got his feet off the bed and stood up, ignoring the bright flashes of pain in his back and his legs. The sound had come from the living room, he thought, as he stepped out carefully past the bedroom's dividing wall.

There was a body, curled up tight into itself against the kitchen island, shuddering in the pale moonlight.

"Matt," he breathed, and crossed the room to him. Foggy stopped a few feet away, hard and sudden, swallowing. "Matt. Can you talk to me?"

His answer was more sobbing, a low and broken little thing, much like the person at his feet that was making it. Foggy bent and moved a little closer, his eyes starting to adjust. Matt was tucked up against the island, knees to his chest and his face in his knees. His right arm was wrapped around his legs and his left he'd shoved in against himself.

Foggy reached out, but didn't touch him. "Matt. It's me. You know who I am?"

The sobbing hitched for a long few seconds; Matt lifted his head. For a while, it looked like he might say something. Then he turned himself to the side, and pushed his face into the bottom of the kitchen island, and resumed his sobbing. He was shaking so hard, and Foggy could tell most of it wasn't even from the tremor.

He wasn't dissuaded. If anything, he became even more determined. Foggy put his hands on the floor and scooted closer. "Hey, Matty. It's me. Fog." He wasn't too sure what to say beyond that, but still he talked, because Matt needed to hear it. "I'm here, Matt. I'm right here. You're in your apartment."

His voice seemed to do _something_ , because Matt's sobbing was starting to quiet. It wasn't stopping, but it was getting weaker.

"I'm not going anywhere, Matty, I told you I wouldn't. I'm okay. You're... well... well, we'll figure it out later. But you're safe. Up in your apartment, top floor. Okay? Matty." Foggy got close again, finally daring to reach out. His heart was pounding. He was about to touch a feral. "I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder, Matt," he said, and then he did it. Matt didn't swing around, didn't turn on him, didn't snap or bite or snarl.

Matt shifted, turned himself around, and pressed himself tight against Foggy's chest, clutching handfuls of his shirt with both his hands, sobbing rough and hard into the fabric. Foggy just brought his arms up and wrapped them around Matt's shoulders, tugging him close, trying not to swallow, trying not to feel afraid. It was easy, because this was Matt-- and it was difficult, because Matt's left side was shaking, and Matt was feral. He was feral, he was feral, he was feral.

The thought looped itself through Foggy's head a thousand times, a thousand times more, and morning light was starting to come in between the boarded windows, and Matt wasn't sobbing anymore, just sniffling and hiccuping and shaking, shaking, shaking. His hands were still twisted tight in the shirt and his face was pressed hard against Foggy's neck. There had been tears but they were dry now. Foggy didn't dare to move.

Another thousand times.

Then Matt shifted, weak and slow, and talked. His voice was even weaker, even slower. "I'm still... here," he said into the skin of Foggy's neck. "Why... am I... still... here?"

A strange question, Foggy thought, idly, in the back of his scattered head. He didn't know the answer. He said so.

Matt let out a long breath. It tickled against Foggy's beard. "Where am... I?"

"The apartment."

"...How'd I... get here?"

"I carried you."

Matt pushed himself closer, somehow. "...My hand's shaking, Foggy." His voice was small. He sounded so fucking young. So fucking terrified.

"I know it is."

"...Foggy, I'm feral," he breathed, and hitched in a sob. It broke like ice in his chest. "I'm feral."

"Yeah."

"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Foggy. I'm so sorry."

"I know you are. I know."

"Please don't leave me. Please. _Please._ "

Foggy held him tighter, dug his fingers into the filthy hair at the base of Matt's neck. "I'm never gonna leave you," he said, and then pitched his face against Matt's shoulder and kept it there. The morning's light flooded the apartment and lit up every speck of dust like a distant and unreachable star.

\---

It took a few hours for Matt to get up, and when he did, it was only so he could get to the damned bathroom. He needed help, but wouldn't ask for it, so Foggy got to his feet and took Matt's arm, wordlessly, guiding him where he needed to go.

"Thank you," Matt whispered, and his voice was as dead as his city.

He stepped back out a few minutes later, and didn't look any better. Foggy hadn't budged from the bathroom door, and reached out to take Matt's arm again.

"No." He shied away. "I'm fine."

Something splintered, deep in Foggy's head. "You're not fine."

"I'm--"

"Matt. You're not fine. You're really fucking not." He shadowed his friend closely, frowning. He finally spoke, asked the question he was still asking himself, praying desperately for a fucking answer. "Do you have any idea what the fuck just happened?"

With a soft noise, Matt shook his head. He managed to get himself to the couch, at least-- the legs had broken off, a month ago, and now sat more as a pile of cushions on top of a pile of wood. He settled himself down carefully. Foggy followed, and sat next to him.

"I'm going to touch your forehead, Matty, okay?"

Matt just nodded, eyes flicking around some middle distance between the bedroom and the corpse of the city outside.

Foggy placed the back of his hand against Matt's forehead, feeling the warmth blooming against his skin. "You've got a fever still."

"I know."

"What else?"

Matt chewed his lip, fell quiet.

"Matt. Don't pull this shit on me right now. Tell me what else." Foggy's voice was low. Serious. A tone he didn't use often. He shook Matt's shoulder, trying to be gentle and forceful at the same time. He wasn't sure how well he did. "Tell me."

"I'm..." he huffed, tilted his head around, angled his face upward like he was trying to stop tears from spilling out of his eyes. "My arm. It's shaking. My leg, too. Left side. It's... dis... disorienting." He blinked hard. The tears came anyway. "I'm tired. My head hurts. I can't..." he took in a breath, eyes flicking around, "...I can't remember."

"Can't remember what?"

"Anything," Matt breathed, and he slowly tilted his head back down, slumping sideways against the couch's armrest. He rubbed the side of his face against it. " _Anything_."

"Do you remember what happened?" Foggy asked, swallowing again, reaching out to rub Matt's shoulder idly. Sensory loop. "Do you even remember coming home yesterday?"

Matt shook his head, frowning.

"What _do_ you remember?"

"Mm." Matt was leaning into the contact. He didn't seem to notice. "The... um. We were leaving the apartment. It was morning, I think? We were... uh. Water and food?" He turned his head on his neck, as if seeking eye contact, but his eyes ended up on the windows, still rimmed in red. "Is that... is that right?" he asked, a soft lilt of hope audible in his voice.

It stabbed Foggy right in the fucking chest. "...Yeah. Yeah, that's right, buddy. We were looking for water."

"What time is it now?"

Foggy frowned. Matt never really needed to ask that question. Another iced shard of worry to throw on the pile. It was getting about Everest-sized, now. "It's probably around nine in the morning. We went out yesterday."

Matt rubbed his face, hard, then kept it in his hands, breathing slowly. "I lost a whole day?" he asked, bewildered, dropping his left hand because it was shuddering against his cheek. He started clenching and unclenching his fist. The tremor didn't fade at all.

Foggy let out a breath. "...This is what happened, Matt," he started, speaking as gently as he could. "There was a feral, in this alley I was checking out. She attacked me, and you came and attacked her back. You killed her," Matt flinched at the words, face twisting as he turned it away from Foggy, "and just sort of stood over her body. Gasping. I thought you'd... you know. You turned."

"...Didn't I?" Matt asked, waving his trembling hand in the air.

"Against me, Matt. I thought you were going to come for _me_."

He flinched again, and shut his mouth, tucking his arm against his chest.

"You didn't, though. Matt. You didn't attack me. You didn't even try. You stood there a couple seconds and you just... dropped. Fell down, in the alley. You couldn't talk. So I picked you up and brought you home."

"How far away were we?"

Foggy pressed his lips together. "A couple miles."

"You carried me that far?"

"Uh. Well, only for like, the last half. You did okay on your own until then. It was like your legs just stopped wanting to move." Foggy sighed. He forced the humor into his voice, and it was weak, but it was something. "You weigh a million tons. I think I broke my spine."

Matt huffed. A courtesy laugh. A _'I understand that you're trying to make me feel better and I appreciate it, but it's just not cutting the mustard'_ laugh. He fiddled with the edge of the couch cushion with the hand that wasn't trembling. "...Thanks, Foggy."

"Yeah, you don't gotta thank me."

"I do." He clenched his left fist again. Unclenched. Clenched. His arm never stopped shaking. "...Why didn't I die, Foggy? Why didn't I turn on you?"

"I don't know."

Matt's jaw was jumping beneath the scruff on his face. "...What are we going to do?"

Foggy couldn't come up with an answer.

\---

The day was quiet. Uncomfortable. Matt ended up slinking back to the bed and sleeping most of the morning, then most of the afternoon. Foggy had never seen him sleep so hard before, and in any other situation, he'd probably be relieved. Happy. Instead, he sat in the bedroom doorway and checked every few minutes to make sure Matt hadn't died.

He didn't. He woke up groggily, a few hours before sundown, pushing himself up into a sitting position and leaning on his arms. His hair was everywhere and his skin was still as pale as anything. Foggy got to his feet, made his way over.

"Hey, Matty," he breathed, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

Matt tilted his head. "...Foggy," he mumbled. He sounded lost. Confused. Impossibly young and fragile. It hurt so fucking bad. "Where am I?"

Foggy tried to swallow a heavy, dark _something_ that was crawling up his throat. "You're in your bed. Your apartment. You've been sleeping all day, buddy."

"Am I sick?"

The thought scattered across Foggy's thoughts like lightning. Matt didn't remember. He didn't remember the conversation they'd had not eight hours ago. He didn't remember collapsing in the alley. Foggy pushed out a breath and his throat felt all twisted up. "...Yeah, buddy. You've been sick."

Matt rubbed his face. "With what?"

God, he'd give anything. Anything. He'd _die_ to fix this. "The virus."

At those words, Matt went still, dropping his hand back to the bed, lifting the other. The tremor was still present. Horror swept across Matt's face, and he clenched his jaw, and shook his head. "What did I...?"

Foggy explained again. The alleyway, the walk home. A repeat of the conversation they'd just had earlier, which he also had to mention.

Matt listened closely, silent, eyes filling up with tears. He shook his head again, rubbed his face. His clumsy left hand nearly jabbed his eye out and he made a noise, half of a weak groan and half a growl, an echo of the one he'd let out in the alleyway. Not human. Rattling from deep in his chest. A noise that Matt had never made before yesterday.

They both heard it. They both went still.

Matt started shivering, and eventually talked first. A question. Airy and frail. "What's wrong with me, Foggy? What's _wrong_ with me?" He rubbed his chest hard, like he could reach in and pull out the sound he'd made along with the virus that made him do it.

Foggy could only keep his honesty. "I don't know, Matty."

"I'm scared," he spoke under his breath, and Foggy crept across the bedding and pulled him into another hug. Another puddle of tears to be soaked up by a threadbare shirt. "...Are you going to leave me?"

His response was so rough and hard that it was nearly a shout and Matt flinched to hear it. "Never. I'm never leaving you." Foggy held him tighter, just like the morning before, a soundtrack stuck on repeat. "I'm staying, Matt, I'm staying. I'll never leave."

Foggy held him until he fell asleep again. Matt stayed that way all through the night, then woke up in the morning, and barely remembered the conversation they'd had. But he remembered _something_ , and Foggy clung to that fact just like Matt was clinging to himself, his own brain, burning alive as the virus chewed through it.

\---

The green notebook landed with a soft noise on the cardboard box in front of the couch. Foggy jolted at the sound, blinking as Matt came and sat next to him.

"What's this for?" Foggy asked, reaching out to pick up the notebook. It was blank inside.

"For me," Matt said, placing a pen in Foggy's other hand. "You're going to write down my symptoms. If I still have the virus, or survived it, or... God, it doesn't matter. It's killed everyone else. This might be important, Foggy. This might help someone find a cure."

"I'm not studying you like some kind of lab rat, dude."

Matt's voice dropped. Serious, no opening for an argument. Damn. "You need to write down what you see when this happens. It could help someone."

Because Matt was always about helping someone. Anyone. Anyone but _himself._

Foggy stared at the notebook in his hands. "Can it help you?"

"I don't think anything can help me," Matt said, and the honesty in his words struck Foggy like a blow to the face. "Write down what happened, Foggy. All of it. Please."

So Foggy did.

\---

It happened again a week later. Foggy wrote it in the notebook. Again, two weeks later. Foggy wrote it down. Five days later. Foggy wrote it down. Three weeks later. Foggy wrote it down.

He filled four pages. Sixty-seven incidents. Twelve sedations. Four serious injuries. An emotionless list made up of his best friend, written in impassive blue and black ink, letters on a page instead of blood and muscle and life in a body.

Three and a half months after the final plateau, Foggy sat on a futon with Matt sleeping behind him, watching Karen read the notebook-- witness each and every one secondhand. He hoped they hurt her as much as they'd hurt him. Every word was a wound carved in Foggy's head. Every plateau an infection. Every sedation an illness.

All the little parts of Matt, collected up and neatly written-- and nobody else would have even cared. Anyone else would have shot Matt in the alley before he could come down from the plateau. Even Karen. Especially Karen.

Foggy still wondered what had gone wrong. What had caused the virus to do what it did to Matt instead of killing him. Caused it to slide in and out like a tide before falling in all at once like a hurricane.

Staring at Karen on the couch across from him, watching her eyebrows ticking down slowly as her eyes flicked back-and-forth, with Matt snoring softly against his hip, Foggy realized: nothing had gone wrong with the virus. Everything had gone right.

Without it, he wouldn't have gone to the shelter.

Without it, he wouldn't have found Karen.

Without it, Karen wouldn't have found herself.

Without it, they wouldn't be where they were now-- together, the three of them, together and safe, _together_ and as happy as anyone could possibly fucking be in the world they lived in.

Foggy blinked slowly, then reclined back on the futon, tugging Matt against him. His friend only made a low undulating sound, like a growl, but weaker and harmless, _content_ , and pushed his face against Foggy's neck, wiggling in as close as he could.

"Thanks, bud," he mumbled, inaudible, and nudged their foreheads together.

Matt drooled.


End file.
